In Hesse, it is said that with knots tied in willow one may
slay a distant enemy; and the Bohemians have a belief that
seven-year-old children will become beautiful by dancing in the flax.
But many superstitions have clustered round the latter plant, it having
in years gone by been a popular notion that it will only flower at the
time of day on which it was originally sown. To spin on Saturday is said
in Germany to bring ill fortune, and as a warning the following legend
is among the household tales of the peasantry:--"Two old women, good
friends, were the most industrious spinners in their village, Saturday
finding them as engrossed in their work as on the other days of the
week. At length one of them died, but on the Saturday evening following
she appeared to the other, who, as usual, was busy at her wheel, and
showing her burning hand, said:--
'See what I in hell have won,
Because on Saturday eve I spun.'"
Flax, nevertheless, is a lucky plant, for in Thuringia, when a young
woman gets married, she places flax in her shoes as a charm against
poverty. It is supposed, also, to have health-giving virtues; for in
Germany, when an infant seems weakly and thrives slowly, it is placed
naked upon the turf on Midsummer day, and flax-seed is sprinkled over
it; the idea being that as the flax-seed grows so the infant will
gradually grow stronger.
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